this to you. For it is of no use."

"No; I am promised to Richard Dodd," she sobbed.

"If that was all that stood between us I'd reach now and take you in my
arms," he said, with bitterness.

"It is more than a mere promise--he owns me--it was bargain and
sale--it's sacrifice--for--But I must not tell you." She went to the
tree and put her forehead on her crossed arms and wept with a child's
pitiful abandon. He came close and put tender hand upon her shoulder.

"Sacrifice, little sister of the rose! Then there is another bond
between us! Sacrifice! My God! the curse that is sometimes put upon the
innocent!" He put the tip of his forefinger under her chin and lifted
her face from her arms. "I haven't any right to tell you that I love
you. I must march on. I cannot even explain to you why I cannot take you
in my arms and plead for your love."

Her eyes told him what answer his pleading would win, and he trembled
and stepped away from her.

"Since it can never be," she said, brokenly, "you may as well know
that I--that I do--I couldn't help it. I am forward--I am bold--it
is shameless--but I never loved anybody before." She put out both her
hands, and he took them.

Old Etienne dragged doggedly at his work, his lantern lighting his toil.
The looms clacked behind the dusty windows which splashed their radiance
upon the gloom.

"It is a bit strange that now another wonderful but bitter experience
should come into my life on this spot where we are standing," he told
her. He spoke quietly, trying to calm her; striving to crowd back his
own emotions. "I guess fate picked this spot as the right place for us
to say farewell to each other. I stood here one day and saw old Etienne
draw a dead woman to the surface of the water, and I found a letter in
her breast and I took her key and went and found little Rosemarie."

She stared at him, her eyes very wide in the darkness.

"And that dead woman--she was the mother of the little girl?"

"Yes, a poor weaver that the mills had broken. And Rosemarie and I sat
all night under this tree. It is too long a story for you now. No matter
about that, but I--"

"I know about Rosemarie," she confessed.

"And my heart opened and something new came into it, little sister of
the rose. And now on this spot I stand, and all joy and hope and love
are dead for me when I give back to you these dear little hands."

She was still staring at him.

"But I must not--I dare not speak of it,"